Tuesday, January 17, 2012

On Wings of Sound – Transcendental Meditation

TM (Transcendental Meditation) is a meditation technique, which requires about 20 minutes of having your eyes closed while reciting a mantra as you sit comfortably in a chair or couch. It is practiced twice daily. It is unique among other techniques of meditation, because it is effortless and yields profound mental and physical health benefits.

The TM technique allows your mind to settle inward, beyond thought, to experience the silent reservoir of energy, creativity and intelligence found within everyone — a natural state of restful alertness. During the practice, your brain functions with significantly greater coherence and your body gains deep rest.

Transcendental Meditation is taught through personalized instruction by a certified teacher in the same systematic way as the teachers of thousands of years ago.

A friend introduced me to Transcendental Meditation in New York many years ago. My two-syllable mantra was given to me by a certified instructor of the Maharishi Mahesh YogiCenter in Manhattan. Indeed, I was astounded by its overall soothing effects.

However, after several months of practicing TM, being young and filled with angst, I craved for something somewhat more rigorous. Inspired by the writings of Allan Watts, I switched to studying Zen on my free time. The meditation technique of Zen is more arduous and requires the practitioner to assume the lotus position. Just the same, the goal is to quiet one's mind, and that, by the way, is what is referred to as passive meditation. The Zen student is also encouraged to learn active meditation, such as the martial arts, brush painting, tea ceremony, and etc.

I was not to become a Zen master, for that was never my intention to begin with, but I learned much from both my passive and active meditation practices. Eventually, I was able to apply the insights I learned from such discipline in both my personal and professional life – at times in the most crucial situations.

I must also admit that whatever successes I had in my jobs stemmed from an attitude enhanced by my meditation practice. More important, my lack of desire to experiment with various psychedelics and designer drugs prevalent in New York during that period of time, I attribute to my meditation practice.

Nonetheless, as time went by, my interest in meditation seemed to have waned; complacency, I guess. Recently, however, as if by some serendipitous phenomenon, I received two books authored by Ms. MargaritaVentinilla-Hamada. One of which deals with Transcendental Meditation, “On Wings of Sound.” In it, she expounds the infinite benefits of meditation, specifically, the easy-to-practice TM technique (Transcendental Meditation). She wrote it in an easy-to-understand manner complete with illustrations.

Since receiving and reading “On Wings of Sound” I had gone back to TM meditation practice twice daily. And I agree with Ms. Hamada: That practicing TM could very well assuage the most basic ill of the Pinoys --immaturity!

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